


Inter-Agency Cooperation

by thedevilchicken



Category: Magnum P.I. (TV), Murder She Wrote
Genre: Crossover, Detectives, F/M, Flirting, Older Woman/Younger Man, Sharing a Room, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 19:38:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12564692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: An old acquaintance of Jessica's is murdered by her younger lover. Jessica and Magnum are on the case.





	Inter-Agency Cooperation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rosencrantz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosencrantz/gifts).



It was just one date, Jessica told herself. Where was the harm in that?

It was just one date, neatly arranged to bait a prolific con artist-turned-murderer against whom the authorities had been having a little trouble making their case. Jessica was a long time past requiring a chaperone - longer than she sometimes cared to think, though she couldn't say she usually felt that way - but she reasoned that a younger man on her arm would sell the part she intended to play very well indeed. She borrowed diamonds just the right side of extravagant for the society event they planned to attend. She wore her most obviously expensive dress, the one that Seth said made her look a little like a millionaire schoolmarm and she guessed she was at that. 

And Magnum...well, Magnum was still Magnum, there was no escaping that. He said he couldn't let her go alone and have all the fun without him, which was exactly the type of man she'd met months before in Hawaii; he hadn't changed at all. He was still the type of man who somehow, far from home, procured a bright red Ferrari with the greatest of ease.

"You're looking at it like somebody put a slug in your purse, Mrs. Fletcher," Magnum said, as he drove them to the party. The Ferrari really wasn't made for New York traffic; they'd stop-started so many times along the way that Jessica was starting to think a rollercoaster would have been more comfortable. "Honestly, it's a classic!"

"I think you and I have very different definitions of that word, Mr. Magnum," Jessica replied, with an amused cluck of her tongue. He laughed. She didn't say she thought they likely had very different definitions for a lot of things, but he likely thought the same. 

As the evening wore on and their plans unfolded, she asked herself if the case was, technically speaking, more hers or Magnum's - not that she took cases, per se, of course. Magnum had tracked an alleged conman east from Hawaii to New York but by that point, the gentleman in question had already caught her eye after an old college friend's sudden and frankly highly suspicious death. She'd cornered the mustachioed P.I. skulking around after the wake. He made excuses. She hatched a plan. Now there they were together, waltzing. 

He wasn't a poor dancer, as far as private investigators went. He wasn't poor company, either, once he'd taken a deep breath and hauled himself up on over the fact she was a woman of a certain age with a mind twice as sharp as his was, though she crossed her heart and swore to leave the firearms and the high-speed car chases to him. Then he left her alone at their table for twenty long minutes, on cue, and when he returned they staged a semi-public falling-out. He was a terrible actor, she thought, for all his other skills, but his lies sounding obvious actually worked in their favor. 

Still, in the days that followed, there wasn't a bite - not a single nibble. She'd told herself it was just one date, but, unwilling as they both were to admit defeat, it soon turned into two.

Two dates turned into three, and three to four. They drove around town in the borrowed car they pretended that she'd bought for him. They shopped in expensive stores and he tried on outfits for her, like a hairy mannequin with a glint in his eye. He put his arm around her shoulders at the restaurant at lunch, while they surveilled their suspect. When they played tennis, he wore extremely short shorts. And, at night, to really sell their pantomime, he slept in her hotel suite. He took the couch, like a gentleman, but they did an excellent job of making the situation appear otherwise. His clothes were in her bedroom. Once or twice, he hopped into bed next to her to fool the hotel staff. Once or twice he hopped into bed _on top of her_ ; when the maid service left, he grinned and she laughed and she swatted at his shoulder.

"Jessica Fletcher," Seth said, on the phone from Cabot Cove the first night. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were enjoying yourself."

Jessica tutted. It was all business, she told herself, except she supposed the undercover work was unexpectedly engaging.

"I don't like it, Aunt Jess," Grady said, on the phone to the suite on the second night. "I mean, what do you know about the guy? He could be an ax murderer!"

Jessica chuckled. Magnum had been a Navy officer, of course, but she doubted he'd ever used an ax; he seemed to prefer his Colt .45.

On the third night, she wandered into the bathroom to discuss their plans while he was in the tub. He sat up quickly and sloshed bubbly water onto the floor.

"Mrs. Fletcher?" he said, looking more amused than put out, just as she'd expected. They'd spent their evenings on the couch or at the suite's small dining table, making small-talk (and some not quite so small) over a bottle of wine; they'd talked about Jessica's books and Magnum's work and the places all around the world that they'd both been. He'd steered the conversation toward what she knew about Robin Masters and she could honestly say she didn't know. She'd steered the conversation toward his own suspicions and he'd smiled and said _no comment_. She liked him. She by no means liked everyone; she'd have liked to, but she knew too much about human nature for that.

"You really don't have anything I haven't seen before, Mr. Magnum," she told him, matter-of-factly, as he made a show of covering up what was already covered up. She perched herself on the edge of the tub. He shrugged and regained his previous sprawl. Apparently, he guessed she was right.

Later, he got out of the tub and wandered into the lounge, naked except for the towel held precariously in front of his groin. She looked up from her typewriter. She took off her glasses. She raised her brows. 

"Mr. Magnum?" she said, looking just as amused as he had, she had no doubt of that.

"I really don't have anything you haven't seen before, Mrs. Fletcher," he said, with a grin. "Isn't that right?" Then he casually lifted the towel away to dry his hair with it. She laughed and sat back in her chair and he winked then walked away to dress. At least she could say he kept her on her toes.

On the fifth night, Magnum flirted with their waitress at the table in the hotel restaurant while Jessica was elsewhere, powdering her nose. Jessica played the woman scorned quite well, she thought, for someone who was nothing of the sort; he kissed her, suddenly; she slapped him and went back up to the suite at quite a clip. Magnum followed close behind, protesting his innocence rather loudly all the while.

"You know, she's really not my type," Magnum said, lounging against the door once it was closed and locked behind them. 

Jessica raised her brows. "You have a _type_ , Mr. Magnum?" she replied, putting down her purse. 

He chuckled as he toed off his shoes. "Touché," he said. He took off his sports coat and slung it over the couch. He unbuttoned the collar of his polo shirt and then took that off, too. Jessica raised her brows.

"Can I ask why you're undressing?"

He shrugged, not quite suppressing a smile. "It seemed like the thing to do," he said, unbuckling his belt. "Don't we get to make up now?"

She shook her head, not entirely sure if she was more amused than she was exasperated, which seemed to be her usual reaction where Thomas Magnum was concerned. "You really are an incorrigible flirt, you know," she said, and patted him on the chest. "I'll think you mean it one of these days. Then where will we be?"

Magnum paused. He frowned. He rubbed at his mustache. He looked at her. 

"You think I'm joking," he said.

"You're not?" she replied.

"Well, I _was_ ," he said. He rubbed the back of his neck. He took a step closer. "But now I'm not so sure." 

She had to admit, he was a charming man. He was also already half-naked and standing not two feet in front of her, looking at her in a way that made her cheeks feel warm. She wasn't a nun, after all - her old friend Claire might have been a Mother Superior, but Jessica herself was not immune.

"Oh, if I were twenty years younger, Mr. Magnum..." she said.

He reached out. He settled his hands at her waist. He raised his brows and smiled. "If you were, what would you do?" he asked. 

He was a _very_ charming man. For once, she was completely speechless, but that didn't quiet her imagination.

On the fifth date, they staged another fight. Their quarry took the bait; he slipped into the seat next to hers in the hotel bar, with an easy smile and a friendly ear. Jessica was charming, and she toyed with the jewels. And, after a spiked drink that never passed her lips and a feigned headache followed by an early night, the guilty party came into her suite to find Magnum and three officers of the New York Police Department waiting. They turned on the lights as he had her borrowed diamonds in her hands. The drug in her drink was a match for the one that had killed her friend. 

"I suppose you'll be going home now, Mr. Magnum," Jessica said, once the officers had left with their man in handcuffs. Maybe it wasn't a happy ending, exactly, but it was likely the best they could have hoped for; justice was done and Magnum would be paid, back in Hawaii. 

"I thought I might stick around a few more days, take some vacation time," Magnum replied, sprawling hugely on the couch with a huge, lazy smile. "Don't look so disappointed, Mrs. Fletcher. I promise I'll give back the Ferrari." He quirked his brows. "But maybe I can take you out for one last ride first?"

She laughed. She shook her head as he left the couch and he swept her off her feet with ease and not only a little charm. She let him, much against her better judgement. But, in bed, her hair mussed, their clothes abandoned, she couldn't help but think their cooperation had had benefits. Her old friend would have wholeheartedly approved.

He teased her about hairnets and what the local gossips would say if only they knew. She teased him about his distracting pairs of short-shorts and how he thought wearing sneakers to a dinner dance was totally acceptable, even without socks. When he pushed inside her with a groan, larger than she'd thought, and leaned down to press his mouth to her neck just by her ear, things didn't seem very much more serious; he murmured that he meant what he'd said about the Ferrari, and she told him she'd meant what she's said about the shorts.

It had been meant to be just one date, except them it had been four and five. And the morning after the arrest, Magnum knocked on Jessica's door. He leaned on the frame when she opened it, grinning. She hadn't been sure if she'd see him again, but didn't regret that she had.

"Can I buy you breakfast, Mrs. Fletcher?" he said. 

"No," she replied, and he raised his brows, so she stepped aside to show off the room service trolley that had just arrived before him. "But you can share mine. I think the manager sent me enough food for all of Cabot Cove." 

Magnum came in and he speared a pancake with a fork. He took a bite, still standing. 

"Thanks," he said, waggling the fork with the pancake still on it. "What do you say I buy you lunch instead?"

It was meant to be one date. Now _six_ looked much more likely. 

Jessica laughed. She took a seat and took a pancake of her own. And she didn't say no. 

"I think you'd better call me Jessica," she said.


End file.
